Wilbur Ross eyes American Home Mortgage Co in a predatory buy-out

[whistle]

....This is how the Ben Bernanke chesp Fed money is being used.

Wilbur Ross, the private equity fund shark known for buying steel companies on the cheap, consolidating them at the cost of thousands of jobs, and then selling them for super profits, is now looking hungrily at the mortgage business, just as Federal Reserve-organized bail out funds are starting to pour in. According to today's New York Times, Ross's W.L. Ross & Co. is looking to buy the service unit of American Home Mortgage, which collects homeowners' mortgage payments, for $435 million.

American Home Mortgage is in bankruptcy because, like a few dozen other mortgage companies, it lost the support of the banks that financed its loans. Ross admitted that there is risk in moving into the mortgage business at this time but "we are private equity investors so we have a very long-term business horizon."

Here is the news story from yesterday:

<snip>
Billionaire eyes American Home Mortgage unit
BY DANIEL WAGNER [e-mail]
6:53 PM EDT, September 21, 2007

In what could be the beginning of the end for American Home Mortgage, billionaire financier Wilbur Ross Jr. has offered to pay up to $435 million for the company's loan servicing division, which is its only operational business unit.

Melville-based American Home has been in the process of winding down its affairs and selling off its properties and securities portfolio since declaring bankruptcy early last month, and its loan servicing business has emerged as its most valuable and most contentious remaining asset.

Ross, who has made a fortune investing in distressed industries including steel and textiles, formed a new entity called AH Mortgage Acquisition Co. on Sept. 6 to buy the unit, which services $57 million in loans and has recently been plagued by accusations of issuing bad checks for customers' property tax payments.

<MORE>

http://www.newsday.com/business/ny-bzahm0922,0,1733523.story

[Horse with no Name]

1. This couldn't have been foreseen

:eyes:

[whistle]

2. ...or manipulated into happening

:hide: :yoiks:

[Horse with no Name]

3. Follow the money....

it usually leads right into the pocket of one Bush croney or the other...